Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:37:02.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Farmworker Advocacy through Guestworker Policy: Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell and the Bracero Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2017

Andrew J. Hazelton
Andrew J. Hazelton*
Affiliation:
Texas A&M International University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 431 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author wishes to thank the three anonymous reviewers for JPH, whose critiques of this article helped improve its clarity, framing, and contextualization.

References

NOTES

1. Harvest of Shame, DVD, directed by Fred W. Friendly (CBS News, 1960; New York: New Video Group, 2005).

2. Ibid.

3. The term “bracero” derives from the Spanish brazo, or arm, and translates roughly into “farmhand.”

4. Growers were nervous about farmworker unionization since the rural upheavals of the New Deal era had unleashed the threat of labor militancy. Decentralized implementation of New Deal agricultural programs designed to raise prices by retiring acreage allowed southern cotton landlords to evict sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who in turn organized in unions, held demonstrations, and waged strikes. Meanwhile, California farmworkers, inspired by the federal government’s endorsement of collective bargaining in industry, struck en masse at harvest time. The New Deal coalition’s political calculus ultimately undercut farmworker military, as southern Democratic and rural support for labor legislation for the party’s urban wing translated into farmworkers’ exclusion from the Wagner Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social Security. For a full description of the impact of New Deal agricultural policy on southern land tenure, see Daniel, Pete, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures Since 1880 (Urbana, 1985) 91–110Google Scholar; Fite, Gilbert C., Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865–1980 (Lexington, 1984), 102, 124–25, 139–47Google Scholar; Foley, Neil, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley, 1997), 163–82Google Scholar; Richards, Henry I, Cotton and the AAA (Washington, D.C., 1936)Google Scholar; Saloutos, Theodore, The American Farmer and the New Deal (Ames, 1982), 66–87Google Scholar; Schulman, Bruce J., From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938–1980 (New York, 1991), 15–23Google Scholar; Snyder, Robert E., Cotton Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1984), 22–33, 86–92, 120–63Google Scholar; and Volanto, Keith, Texas, Cotton, and the New Deal (College Station, Tex., 2005), 125–41Google Scholar. For more on sharecroppers’ and tenants’ farmers unions, see Grubbs, Donald H., Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and the New Deal (Chapel Hill, 1971), 84–85Google Scholar; Kelley, Robin D. G., Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, 1990)Google Scholar; Mitchell, H. L., Mean Things Happening in This Land: The Life and Times of H.L. Mitchell, Co-Founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (Montclair, N.J., 1979), 171–82Google Scholar. For labor unrest in California, see McWilliams, Carey, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Labor in California (Boston, 1939), 48–66Google Scholar; Devra Weber provides an excellent account of farmworker militancy in California during the New Deal era in her book, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley, 1994). For the political calculus behind excluding farmworkers from New Deal legislation, see Weber, 80, 106, 123–26.

5. There was a brief period early in the program when agricultural employers found their will thwarted by government administrators. Initially, the Bracero Program was run by the Farm Security Administration, which growers regarded as a dangerous agency bent on social experimentation for its government-run farmworker housing camps free of grower intimidation. When the FSA acted to place American farmworkers and sharecroppers in jobs for which growers had requested braceros, the employers pressed their congressional representatives to transfer authority of the program to the Department of Agriculture, which assumed administration in 1943.

6. For a full account of the program in this period see Calavita, Kitty, Inside the State: The Bracero program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. (New York, 1992), chap. 2Google Scholar; Craig, Richard C., The Bracero Program: Interest Groups and Foreign Policy (Austin, 1971), chap. 2Google Scholar; Galarza, Ernesto, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story: An Account of the Managed Migration of Mexican Farm Workers in California, 1942–1960 (Charlotte, 1964); chap. 6Google Scholar; Larry Manuel García y Griego, “The Bracero Policy Experiment: U.S.-Mexican Responses to Mexican Labor Migration, 1942–1955” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1988), 86–114; Gonzalez, Gilbert, Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? Mexican Labor Migration to the United States (Boulder, 2007), chap. 3Google Scholar; Hahamovitch, Cindy, The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870–1945 (Chapel Hill, 1997), 168–74Google Scholar; George C. Kiser, “The Bracero Program: A Case Study of Its Development, Termination, and Political Aftermath” (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1973), 88–131; Majka, Linda C. and Majka, Theo J., Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State (Philadelphia, 1982), 136–43Google Scholar; Ngai, Mae, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, 2004), 133–35Google Scholar; Wayne D. Rasmussen, A History of the Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program, 1943–1947, Agricultural Monograph No. 13 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 24; Otey M. Scruggs, “Texas and the Bracero Program, 1942–1947,” Pacific Historical Review 32, no. 3 (August 1963): 251–64.

7. Undocumented immigrants arrived in increasing numbers as the Bracero Program continued in response to the advertisement of job availability in el Norte and ex-braceros’ tales of difficulties in the formal program.

8. Calavita, Inside the State, 30; Kiser, The Bracero Program, 133; Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 153.

9. For a full account of the program in this period, see Craig, The Bracero Program, chap. 2; Galarza, Merchants of Labor, chap. 7; García y Griego, The Bracero Policy Experiment, 125–67; Kiser, The Bracero Program, 132–52; Hahamovitch, No Man’s Land, chap. 5; Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 143–51.

10. For a full account of how the Bracero Program’s regulations functioned in this period, see Galarza, Merchants of Labor, 121–82. For a broader history of the program, including political wrangling over it and other guestworker programs, see Craig, The Bracero Program, chap. 3; García y Griego, The Bracero Policy Experiment, 251–95; Kiser, The Bracero Program, 153–74; Hahamovitch, No Man’s Land, chap. 5; Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 151–57.

11. Ellender, as quoted in Craig, The Bracero Program, 104. The Eisenhower administration demanded the establishment of recruitment centers along the border and the reopening of a shuttered center in Monterrey, simpler and faster administrative procedures for securing braceros and adjudicating grievances, and a long-term extension of the program. On prevailing wages, Mexican negotiators interpreted the language on prevailing wages in the international agreement to mean the Department of Labor set prevailing wage rates in agriculture, while U.S. negotiators insisted that the department merely determined what wages existed in an area through its decentralized local offices or communication with state agencies who collected such data. U.S. negotiators also wanted clarification on bracero subsistence payments, employers’ provision of nonoccupational insurance, and expansion of bracero wage withholding to prevent “skips”—braceros who became undocumented workers; Craig, The Bracero Program, 103–6.

12. Craig, The Bracero Program, 107–9.

13. Ibid., 111–13.

14. Hahmovitch, No Man’s Land, 125.

15. Calavita, Inside the State, 66; Craig, The Bracero Program, 114, 118, 122–23. The Secretary of Labor’s authority in determining (but not setting) prevailing wages was reaffirmed. Mexican officials could dispute wage determinations and request reviews, but bracero recruitment would continue at the determined wage until the matter was resolved. The agreement also reaffirmed joint determination of employers to be blacklisted. A new border recruitment center would open at Mexicali, the Monterrey and Chihuahua centers would reopen, and those at Durango, Irapuato, and Guadalajara would continue operation. The only U.S. concession came in its willingness to include a nonoccupational insurance benefit in the standard work contract.

16. Eduardo Idar and Andrew McClellan, “What Price Wetbacks?”, 5; 23, Box 5, Folder 6, G.I. Forum What Price Wetbacks, 1953, Eduardo Idar Jr. Papers, Benson Latin American Collection, General Libraries, University of Texas, Austin.

17. Swing, as quoted in Calavita, Inside the State, 53.

18. Calavita, Inside the State, 56–60.

19. For the best accounting of Operation Wetback, see Ramon García, Juan, Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954 (Westport, Conn., 1980).Google Scholar

20. It should be noted that the increase in braceros does not align with the number of undocumented workers arrested during Operation Wetback. Clearly, growers continued to use undocumented labor, and subsequent decreases in INS apprehensions had much to do with congressional appropriations and INS enforcement priorities following the big publicity of Operation Wetback. Still, the point remains that the effort to secure the U.S.-Mexican border had a significant impact on growers’ increasing use of braceros after 1955.

21. Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 153.

22. In 1945, agricultural wages were 47 percent of industrial wages, but by 1959 they were 36 percent. Jacob Clayman, table 2, “Testimony before Subcommittee on Equipment, Supplies, and Manpower of the House Committee on Agriculture,” 7 April 1960, file 47, box 35, RG28-001, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.

23. Galarza, Ernesto, Farm Workers and Agri-business in California, 1947–1960 (Notre Dame, 1977), 251.Google Scholar

24. “Strangers in Our Fields,” September 1956, reprint, STFU Papers, reel 39, 1–5.

25. According to Galarza, these interviews happened out of sight of bosses or camp managers. Ibid., 9; Galarza, Farm Workers and Agri-business in California, 1947–1960, 251.

26. Galarza, “Strangers in Our Fields,” September 1956, reprint, Southern Tenant Farmers Union Papers (Stanford, N.C., 1971), microfilm, reel 39, 18, hereafter referred to as STFU Papers.

27. Ibid., 40–45.

28. Ibid., 22–24.

29. Ibid., 26.

30. Ibid., 25–26.

31. The largest bracero camps housed up to one thousand braceros or more at peak employment times.

32. Galarza, “Strangers in Our Fields,” September 1956, STFU Papers, reel 39, 27–28.

33. Ibid., 12, 62.

34. Ibid., 52–56.

35. Ibid., 67.

36. Ibid., 34.

37. Ibid., 33–40.

38. Ibid., 73.

39. Ibid., 79.

40. Region X Regional Office, Bureau of Employment Security, “A Report on ‘Strangers in Our Fields,’” ND 1956, Galarza Papers, Box 3, Folder 4: Strangers in Our Fields, reports, 1957, n.d., Ernesto Galarza Papers, Special Collections, Stanford University (hereafter Galarza Papers).

41. Anne Effland, “The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs for Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers in post–World War II America” (Ph.D. diss., Iowa State University, 1991), 45–47; 51–53.

42. Galarza, “Report to NAWU on the Bishop’s Committee for the Spanish Speaking,” 4 May 1955; Galarza to Mitchell, 4 May 1955, STFU Papers, reel 39.

43. Galraza to Mitchell, 29 November 1956, STFU Papers, reel 39.

44. National Sharecroppers Fund, Press release, 12 November 1956; National Sharecroppers Fund to James Mitchell, 8 November 1956, STFU Papers, reel 39.

45. Effland, The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs, 58–60.

46. Durkin, a former union leader, resigned over the Eisenhower Administration’s lack of interest in reforming the Taft-Hartley Act after nine months on the job.

47. In fact, Congress had so weakened the Department of Labor after World War II that it repeatedly considered merging it with the Department of Commerce. Guzda, Henry, “James P. Mitchell: Social Conscience of the Cabinet,” Monthly Labor Review (August 1991): 23, 26–27.Google Scholar

48. Effland, The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs, 62–69; Hahmovitch, No Man’s Land, 126.

49. Effland, The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs, 70.

50. Glenn Brockway, Regional Director BES, to All Associations and Employers Contracting Mexican National Farm Workers, 26 December 1956, Box 20, Folder 2: California Department of Employment, Farm Placement Service, 1957 (1), Galarza Papers.

51. Bureau of Employment Security, “Minimum Acceptable Housing Standards for the Housing of Mexican National Workers,” 26 December 1956, Box 20, Folder 2: California Department of Employment, Farm Placement Service, 1957 (1), Galarza Papers.

52. Bureau of Employment Security, “Instructions and Menus for Feeding Mexican Workers,” n.d. 1957, Box 28, Folder 4: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, correspondence, memos, new releases, 1958–62, n.d., Galarza Papers.

53. Goodwin to Members of the Labor Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, 11 January 1957, Box 28, Folder 3: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, Correspondence, Memos, Reports, 1955–57, Galarza Papers.

54. Edward Hayes, Farm Placement Bulletin No. 109, 4 April 1957, Box 20, Folder 2: California Dept. of Employment, Farm Placement Service, 1957, Galarza Papers.

55. Craig, The Bracero Program, 152.

56. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, Region X, Foreign Workers Program, Report of Field Representatives’ Activities, 1 January–31 December 1956, and Report of Field Representatives’ Activities, 1 January–31 December 1957, file “Reports and Statistics, 1953–60 [1 of 2], Office of the Solicitor, Regional Attorney, Region 9, DOL, Records Relating to the Mexican Labor (“Bracero”) Program, 1950–64, Box 8, RG-174, NARA San Bruno.

57. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, Region X, Foreign Workers Program, Report of Field Representatives’ Activities, 1 January–31 December 1958, File Reports and Statistics, 1953–60 [2 of 2], Office of the Solicitor, Regional Attorney, Region 9, DOL, Records Relating to the Mexican Labor (“Bracero”) Program, 1950–64, Box 8, RG-174, NARA San Bruno.

58. James F. Cole to Assistant Secretary of Labor Rocco Siciliano, 1 March 1957, Box 25, Folder 8: Labor: Committee Correspondence—General, 1957, Joseph M. Montoya Papers, University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research, Albuquerque (hereafter Joseph M. Montoya Papers).

59. Shuman to Mitchell, 19 February 1957, STFU Papers, reel 40.

60. National Sharecroppers Fund, Minutes of Executive Board Meeting, 18 October 1957, STFU Papers, reel 40; National Sharecroppers Fund, Proceedings of the National Sharecroppers Fund Conference on “Migratory Labor and Low Income Farmers,” 13 November 1957, STFU Papers, reel 40.

61. Bureau of Employment Security, Minutes and Recommendations of the Labor Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, 18 February 1958, Box 27, Folder 4: U.S. Department of Labor, Advisory Committees, 1951–61, Galarza Papers.

62. Department of Labor, Press release USDL-2360, Executive 3-2320, “Stepped up Recruitment of Domestic Farm Workers Urged by Mitchell,” 6 April 1958, STFU Papers, reel 41.

63. The Imperial Valley Farmers Association had replaced striking farmworkers organized by the NAWU with braceros in the early 1950s. Although the Bracero Program banned the employment of braceros on struck farms, the growers association and local Labor Department officials moved slowly enough that farmers were able to complete the harvest before the braceros (or undocumented workers that worked alongside them) were removed. Galarza, “The Wetback Strike: A Report on the Strike of Farm Workers in the Imperial Valley of California,” 24 May–25 June 1951, n.d. 1951 STFU Papers, reel 36.

64. Newell Brown, Address to the Imperial Valley Farmers Association, 12 December 1958, Box 27, Folder 10: U.S. Department of Labor, Statements by Senior Administrators, 1952–59, Galarza Papers.

65. Robert Goodwin to M. F. Miera, 28 February 1958, Box 25 Folder 9: Labor: Committee Correspondence—General, January–April 1958, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

66. Robert Goodwin to Montoya, 28 February 1958, Box 25 Folder 9: Labor: Committee Correspondence—General, January–April 1958, Joseph M. Montoya Papers; Raymond Worrell to Bob McConnell, 9 May 1958, Box 25, Folder 10: Labor: Committee Correspondence—General, May–June 1958, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

67. Bureau of Employment Security, press release, “Federal Stop Order on Indio Farmer,” 4 August 1959, Office of the Solicitor, Regional Attorney, Region 9, DOL, Records Relating to the Mexican Labor (“Bracero”) Program, 1950–64, Box 3, RG-174, NARA San Bruno.

68. Under the new ruling, the prevailing wage would be the wage received by the greatest number of domestic farmworkers if they accounted for 40 percent or more of the surveyed population. If that wage failed to cover 40 percent of workers, the department would begin at the bottom of the range and move upward until 51 percent of workers were included, with the highest wage in the 51 percent becoming the floor of the prevailing wage range. Robert Goodwin, Memorandum to Members of the Mexican Subcommittee, “Wage Policy Concerning Fifty-cent Earning per Hour and Prevailing Wage Formula, 25 July 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [5 of 5], Lyndon B. Johnson Papers, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas (hereafter Johnson Papers); Craig, The Bracero Program, 152.

69. Craig, The Bracero Program, 152–53.

70. Goodwin, Memorandum to Members of the Mexican Subcommittee, “Wage Policy Concerning Fifty-cent Earning per Hour and Prevailing Wage Formula; Goodwin to Lyndon Johnson, 25 July 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [5 of 5].

71. Goodwin to All Employers of Mexican Contract Labor, Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy Counties, 31 December 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [3 of 3].

72. Johnson received a flood of telegrams with identical language on 15 April 1958, suggesting that the Texas Farm Bureau Federation coordinated the campaign through its county affiliates. Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [1 of 5].

73. Roy Perkins to Johnson, 9 and 22 May 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [1 of 5].

74. D. E. Denney to Johnson, 28 April 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [3 of 5].

75. Harley Bryant to Johnson, 22 April 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [1 of 5].

76. Joe Sooter, Pres Bailey Co Farm Bureau to Johnson, telegram, 19 April 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor 2 of 5.

77. Johnson to Chas De Stefano and Don Angonio, 29 May 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1958, Box 605, Folder LABOR, Mexican Labor [1 of 5].

78. Ganz, Marshall, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (New York, 2009), 58–60.Google Scholar

79. Among the Advisory Committee’s religious leaders were Archbishop Robert E. Lucey; Princeton Theological Seminary Dean Dr. John Mackay; Msgr. George Higgins, director of the National Catholic Welfare Conference’s Department of Social Action; and Rabbi Eugene Lipman, director of a similar department for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Eleanor Roosevelt was joined by other prominent liberals, including Tuskegee Institute president Dr. L. H. Foster, the recently retired liberal New York senator Herbert Lehman, as well as six-time Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. National Sharecroppers Fund, Press release, 20 October 1958, STFU Papers, reel 41; Fay Bennett to William L. Batt Jr., 21 April 1958, STFU Papers, reel 41.

80. James Mitchell, Address to National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, 5 February 1959, Box 413, Folder 12, Carl T. Hayden Papers, Arizona State University Special Collections, Tempe (hereafter Hayden Papers).

81. National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, “Report on Farm Labor: Public Hearings of the National Advisory Committee on Farm Labor,” 5–6 February 1959, STFU Papers, reel 42.

82. This organizing campaign eventually took shape as the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, which, although a major commitment, stumbled badly in organizing California farmworkers. Eventually, the mostly Filipino farmworkers organized by AWOC under the leadership of Larry Itliong merged with the National Farm Workers Association of Cesar Chavez in 1965–66, becoming the United Farm Workers of America. AFL-CIO, Press release, 6 February 1959, STFU Papers, reel 42.

83. Robin Myers, “The Position of Farm Workers in Federal and State Legislation,” July 1959, Box 11, Folder 10: Nat’l Advisory Committee on Farm Labor, 1958–63, Galarza Papers.

84. James Murray to S. G. Goodman, 20 August 1959, Box 10, Folder 11: CA Citizens Committee for Agricultural Labor, 1959–61, Galarza Papers.

85. Ed Hayes, Farm Placement Bulletin No. 184, 2 April 1959, Box 20, Folder 7: California Dept. of Employment, Farm Placement Service, Farm Placement Bulletins, Manual, “Farm Reporting” stats, 1959, Galarza Papers.

86. Craig, The Bracero Program, 153–54; Effland, The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs, 94–95. Mitchell had forged alliances with Catholic leaders before this. At a Catholic Council on Working Life conference, Mitchell had said that farmworker conditions offended “our public commitment to individual worth.” James Mitchell, “Migrant Labor, The National Responsibility,” 22 November 1959, Box 27, Folder 11: U.S. Department of Labor, Statements by Senior Administrators, 1952–58, Galarza Papers.

87. “Report on Mexican Farm Labor Program,” Box 86, Folder 1959 Administrative—Consultants (January–August), James P. Mitchell Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.

88. Mitchell, Don, They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California (Athens, 2012), 323.Google Scholar

89. Don Mitchell, They Saved the Crops, 314–15.

90. Data for Nevada were not included in the BES statistics. State officials compiled the statistics because the state’s growers contracted few braceros.

91. The prevailing wages varied by state and crop activity, but the goal was to increase farm wages and prevent the de facto certification of braceros by forcing growers to offer higher wages before declaring a labor shortage. Craig, The Bracero Program, 153.

92. Department of Labor, News from the Department of Labor, USDL-2886, 12 August 1959, Box 13 Folder 3: Agriculture Committee: Labor Including Mexican Farm Labor/Bracero Program, July–December 1959, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

93. A. J. Norton to Foreign Labor Field Staff, Memorandum: Preference in Employment for Domestic Workers—Referral Policy,” 2 June 1959, File “Opinions and Interpretations, 1957–61 [2 of 2],” Office of the Solicitor, Regional Attorney, Region 9, DOL, Records Relating to the Mexican Labor (“Bracero”) Program, 1950–64, Box 7, RG-174, NARA San Bruno.

94. These guidelines sought to force growers into compliance on housing, facilities, and record-keeping requirements. Bureau of Employment Security, RM 820: Statement of Procedures and Requirements Governing Some Features of the Mexican Labor Program, 12 June 1959, File “Operating Procedures, Policy and Releases, inc. RFMS, 1955–59,” Office of the Solicitor, Regional Attorney, Region 9, DOL, Records Relating to the Mexican Labor (“Bracero”) Program, 1950–64, Box 7, RG-174, NARA San Bruno.

95. Texas House of Representatives, House Concurrent Resolution No. 24, n.d., Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [1 of 3].

96. Doyle L. Ziler to Lyndon Johnson, 6 March 1959, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [1 of 3].

97. C. B. Ray to Lyndon Johnson, 27 April 1959, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [2 of 3]. Goodwin to All Employers of Mexican Contract Labor, Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy Counties, 31 December 1958, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [3 of 3].

98. J. C. Looney to Lyndon Johnson, 3 April 1959; Lyndon Johnson to J. C. Looney, 14 April 1959, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [1 of 3].

99. Reports of the number of congressmen in attendance varied. Montoya claimed over thirty, while E. C. Gathings, in a letter to Clarence Cannon, claimed over forty. E. C. Gathings to Clarence Cannon, 13 March 1959, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [3 of 3].

100. Joseph Montoya to A. W. Langenegger, 11 March 1959, Box 13, Folder 2: Agriculture Committee: Labor Including Mexican Farm Labor/Bracero Program, January–June 1959, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

101. Meeting with Secretary of Labor Mitchell on Proposed Regulations for the Recruitment of Domestic Workers, 10 March 1959, Johnson Papers, Senate Papers, 1949–61, Subject Files, 1959, Box 684, Folder LABOR, Mexican [3 of 3].

102. Wilfred C. Gilbert to Joseph Montoya, 12 March 1959, Box 26, Folder 11: Labor: Migrant/Farm/Bracero Labor, 1959, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

103. William Rogers to James Mitchell, 2 July 1959, Box 26, Folder 11: Labor: Migrant/Farm/Bracero Labor, 1959, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

104. Joseph Montoya to A. W. Langenegger, 19 August 1959, Box 13, Folder 3: Agriculture Committee: Labor Including Mexican Farm Labor/Bracero Program, July–December 1959, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

105. Carl Hayden to James Mitchell, 11 September 1959, Box 91, Folder 12, Carl Hayden Papers.

106. Newell Brown, Address before the Texas Citrus and Vegetable Growers and Shippers Convention, 14 September 1959, Texas AFL-CIO Records, Correspondence with Federal Agencies, 1957–69, AR 110, Series 23, Box 4, Folder 5, “U.S. Department of Labor, Corres., Pamphlets–1959–60,” University of Texas–Arlington Special Collections.

107. “Specials” were often veteran ranch hands or farm-machine operators who had worked on the same farm for years. The specials program allowed growers to bypass the regular, more slowly moving bureaucratic machinery of the regular Bracero Program. E. S. Mayer to Albert Fay, 15 March 1960, Box 104, Folder 1960—Migratory Farm Workers (May–June) (2), James P. Mitchell Papers.

108. Newell Brown to H. M. Rickman, 15 March 1960, Box 26, Folder 12: Labor: Migrant/Farm/Bracero Labor, 1960, Joseph M. Montoya Papers.

109. Robert Lucey to James Mitchell, 27 July 1960, Box 104, Folder 1960—Migratory Farm Workers (July) (1), James P. Mitchell Papers.

110. Texas Employment Commission, 1960 Annual Report, Texas AFL-CIO Records, Correspondence with Federal Agencies, 1957–69, AR 110, Series 24, Box 2, Folder 8: Texas Employment Commission, Misc. Rec.—1959–61, University of Texas–Arlington Special Collections.

111. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Employment Security, Farm Labor Service, “Report of Operations of Mexican Farm Labor Program,” 1 January—30 June 1960, Box 3c38, File 8: Migrant Workers, Miscellaneous Material, Texas State Federation of Labor Records, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

112. Ibid.; Texas Employment Commission, 1961 Annual Report, Texas AFL-CIO Records, Correspondence with Federal Agencies, 1957–69, AR 110, Series 24, Box 2, Folder 8: Texas Employment Commission, Misc. Rec.—1959–61, University of Texas–Arlington Special Collections.

113. Ibid.

114. Good Neighbor Commission of Texas, “Texas Migrant Labor: The 1965 Migration: Mechanization and the Texas Migrant,” Box 2004/127/58, File Texas Migrant Labor, Henry B. Gonzalez Papers, 1946–98, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

115. H.R. 9875 and H.R. 9871, Box 13, Folder 4: Agriculture Committee: Labor Including Mexican Farm Labor/Bracero Program, January–June 1960, Joseph M. Montoya Papers; McGovern’s bill was H.R. 11211; Craig, The Bracero Program, 154–56.

116. The House Committee on Agriculture first considered splitting authority between the secretaries of agriculture and labor, but given the chance this would scuttle the entire renewal by inviting liberal opposition, it reported out a bill on 22 June calling for a simple unamended two-year extension. That bill passed the House unchanged on 29 June, and farm bloc congressmen hoped the Senate would follow suit quickly.116 However, Senator Eugene McCarthy had introduced a renewal bill with the McGovern proposals, which dragged out the proceedings. The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, chaired by Public Law 78 coauthor Allen Ellender, deadlocked until 23 August, when the committee reached a compromise. The bill reported out of committee called for an unamended extension of just six months, extending the program until 31 December 1961. The Senate approved the measure on 31 August, and pro-Bracero Program forces in the House assented, fearing a conference committee reconciliation process that could scuttle everything. The final bill passed both chambers on the last day of the legislative session. Craig, The Bracero Program, 157–58.

117. Galarza, Farm Workers and Agri-business in California, 315.

118. Hahamovitch, No Man’s Land, 129–30.

119. Kennedy had voted against Public Law 78 in 1951, and against unilateral recruitment in 1954. Kiser, The Bracero Program, 184–85, 187–88; Effland, The Emergence of Federal Assistance Programs, 109–10.

120. Arthur Goldberg, 16 April 1961, Box 27, Folder 11: U.S. Dept of Labor, Statements by Senior Administrators, 1952–58, Galarza Papers.

121. The Kennedy administration proposed four amendments, including granting the secretary of labor the power to limit total braceros employed by individual growers, growers’ offering American farmworkers identical contract terms offered to braceros, barring braceros from operating machinery, and growers’ paying wages at least equal to the lesser of the state or national average hourly rates for farm work. Craig, The Bracero Program, 164–68; Kiser, The Bracero Program, 226–32.

122. Ibid., 183–85; Craig, The Bracero Program, 255.

123. Craig, The Bracero Program, 184–85, 189, 192–93; Kiser, The Bracero Program, 255, 263, 268.

124. Flores, Lori A., “A Town Full of Dead Mexicans: The Salinas Valley Bracero Tragedy of 1963, the End of the Bracero Program, and the Evolution of California’s Chicano Movement,” Western Historical Quarterly 44, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 124–43.Google Scholar

125. For the increasing controversy over the Bracero Program from the mid-1950s onward, see Craig, The Bracero Program, chap. 4; Kiser, The Bracero Program, chap. 5; Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 158–66.